Canadian adult entertainer Milo Miles has been banned from entering the United States for 10 years after being detained and interrogated for more than eight hours at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. The Carnal+ performer, who was en route to Las Vegas for the 2026 GayVN Awards, told LGBTQ Nation it was “the worst and most painful day of my life.”
Miles, who holds a master’s degree in public policy and once served as the youngest openly gay elected official in his city, had six GayVN nominations and was scheduled to present at the ceremony on 20 January. He never made it. Instead, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers pulled him into secondary screening, where the questioning quickly took a personal turn.
“I was subjected to derogatory comments, with an unsettling focus on my sexual orientation and my sex life,” Miles said.
Despite being a Canadian citizen with no criminal record and a member of the NEXUS trusted-traveller program, Miles said officers searched his luggage and both his phones. He told LGBTQ Nation that agents were confused by his PrEP medication and fibre supplements, not recognising what they were. After roughly two hours of questioning, he was held for a further six hours without food.
Pressured into a confession
According to Miles, officers pressured him into agreeing with their characterisation of his work as prostitution and unauthorised employment in the US. The 10-year ban that followed has upended both his career and personal life. A significant portion of his adult entertainment work is produced in the US, and his American partner lives there.
The Colombian-Canadian performer’s experience fits a wider pattern. A 2023 Novara Media investigation documented multiple cases of sex workers and adult content creators being detained, questioned, and denied entry at US borders, often based on assumptions rather than evidence. Under current US immigration law, involvement in prostitution, broadly defined, can be grounds for inadmissibility.
Miles won a GayVN Award for Best Oral Sex Scene for Deeper Deep Throat (Vol 1: Hole’s a Hole) at the ceremony he was unable to attend. The win was a bittersweet reminder of what the ban costs him professionally.
When asked what advice he’d give others in the LGBTQIA+ community, Miles was blunt: “Avoid the United States at all costs. It’s not worth it. It’s not worth it to put your life at risk.”
